


Always Charge Your Phone

by RyMagnatar (orphan_account)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Date shenanigans, Humanstuck, M/M, they go to the aquarium
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-16
Updated: 2013-01-16
Packaged: 2017-11-25 17:03:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/641157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/RyMagnatar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John thinks of the absolute perfect place to take Eridan on a date. The Aquarium. Things go absolutely fantastically there, and he heads home thinking nothing could possibly go wrong with this date. Nothing at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Always Charge Your Phone

**Author's Note:**

> this was a bunch of little drabbles on my tumblr that i'm putting here in case they mysteriously vanish uwu

The pompous, better-than-you act falls apart the moment he sees those walls of glass. He moves across the aquarium floor like it’s some sort of holy temple and every step has to be soft, reverent. His hands hover over the glass, not touching, but nearly. If you step close you can hear him under his breath, identifying the attributes of the fish, and thus the fish themselves. 

He hasn’t looked at you since he stepped into this room, and even when you tug on his arm to show him something else just as grand he doesn’t have any attention for you. You don’t mind, though. 

You’ve never seen Eridan smile this much before in your life. 

He literally squeals when he enters the glass surrounded tunnel with sharks swimming all around. He’s a kid in a candy store. He’s a magician in a magic shop. He’s a prankster in a joke shop. He’s a huge fish nerd in an aquarium, running around like he’s never even heard of one before. Like only the ocean could have this many fish in it. 

When the tiger shark swims along the length of the hallway, he follows it, talking to it. It sounds like he even names the shark, by the end of it, and waves an enthusiastic goodbye to the creature as it turns and recedes into the water’s depths. He bounces on his toes like his veins are full of sugar and the couple of times you get to see his face he’s smiling so wide your cheeks hurt in sympathy.

But he bounces from place to place, awed, floored, amazed by everything he sees. By the time you make it to the room where you get to touch the stingrays, he’s barely coherent.

You’ve never heard anyone say the words “my babies” so many times in your life. 

He begs you to eat in the little restaurant inside of the aquarium. Well. Begs is kind of a strong word. What really happens is he turns to you and grabs the front of your jacket and looks at you with huge eyes and that wibbling lower lip and you don’t even have to wait for him to say whatever he’s going to say, because you just say yes.

He doesn’t stretch your wallet, thank God, so the two of you end up sharing a seafood platter. He sits half the time mesmerized by the tank next to your table. He talks about oxygenation of the water, of the effect of light and pressure on evolutionary processes, and how shiny their scales are. He sighs heavily and says how he’d like to have a huge pond outside his house full of fish and aquariums like this in his house. He tells you about the fifty five gallon tank his dad got him when he was six and how some of his fish bit the fins of other ones. 

 His hand curls around yours part way during the meal. He even stops his chatter to listen to you for a while, smiling as he sips from his soda.

When the two of you leave the little restaurant, he asks if you can go through it again. 

That’s when you tell him that the tickets you bought weren’t just for today. They’re the season’s tickets.

He nearly squeezes the breath out of you with his hug.

You’d pat yourself on the back if you could reach. Number one boyfriend award goes to you John Egbert. Your father would be proud.

He ends up buying a giant seahorse plush toy in the souvenir shop before you two leave. 

He’s nearly eighteen years old and you have to bite your lip too hard to keep from laughing. He names it Mr. Whithers, a pun on horses he says very seriously, and carries it around with both arms.

* * *

 

On the bus ride home, he leans against your shoulder, still smiling (though not as painfully happily) and before you know it, he’s dozing. Mr. Whithers nearly falls out of his arms, but you rescue him from his fate. You cautiously put your arm around Eridan’s shoulders. He’s touchy about things like that, doesn’t want things to go too fast, doesn’t want to miss all the good stuff, he says. 

You don’t know what the hell he really means, but if it means he sleeps on your shoulder, one arm stretched across your lap to curl around in Mr. Whithers’s tail while you ride the bus back to his house you’re all for it. You lean your cheek on his hair, which is surprisingly soft for its sculpted look. 

You close your eyes too and, utterly at peace, fall asleep with him. 

You jerk awake when the bus stops. Eridan does the same, scrambling up to his feet while simultaneously saying, “Please, Pop, five more min—”

He stops, looking around. You think it’s stupidly adorable the way his blush makes his ears turn so red. Absolutely ridiculous. He hardly blushes on his cheeks at all. You bet if he were a fish himself he’d be puffed out so much. 

You scoop up Mr. Whithers and hand him over. Eridan drops back down on the bench beside you. You laugh and stretch. Looking around, you notice you don’t quite recognize the scenery outside the bus. You look to the driver and he’s clearly waiting for something. When he sees you looking he says, “Last stop boys. I’m heading in for the night.”

“The night…” you stand up slowly. Oh shit. You take Eridan’s hand and the two of you get off in a hurry. 

Outside on the sidewalk, Eridan stands close to your side, looking around warily. “John. This doesn’t look like the street by my house.”

“I think we’re downtown,” you say, looking around. “Really downtown. I don’t think I’ve ever been down this way before…”

His hand tightens on yours. “We need to get home.”

You check your watch. It’s nearly seven now. You don’t have curfew until midnight, but you weren’t sure where the hell you were. You dig out your phone and wince, putting it back in your pocket. You didn’t charge it last night and now it’s dead.

Eridan groans. He’s forgotten his phone at home too. “We are gonna die.”

 


End file.
